The Lady Is A Tramp: Aiyana Stanley-Jones at the Altar of the Media

by Special Correspondent Andrea Plaid, originally published at Bitch Magazine

I’m taking a moment from my usual sexing-it-up posts because of the little girl pictured above.

For those who don’t know, her name is Aiyana Stanley Jones. And she’s dead. Her family just buried her this week.

She didn’t die from leukemia or in a drunk-driving accident or at the hands of an abusive or negligent parent or guardian.

She died for the sake of entertainment.

For those who haven’t heard the story: Detroit police raided her home on May 16 in what the department said their “executing a search warrant” of a murder suspect they eventually found in the home. According to the Detroit Free Press:

Police said that they threw an incendiary device known as a flash bang through a front window of the home to create a distraction.

After entering, a Detroit officer got into a tussle with Mertilla Jones, Aiyana’s grandmother, who was in the front room.

The police gun went off. Aiyana was killed.

According to family members, Aiyana was sleeping on the couch, which sat near a window that faces the street. The explosive device the police threw in landed on that couch and burned her, said her father, Charles Jones. He and others say the girl was burning when she was shot. …

Aiyana’s dad, Charles Jones, said he rushed into the living room after hearing the explosive and gunshot. He says police made him lie face down on the ground, his face in shattered glass and the blood of his daughter.

The Detroit police department has offered an apology for Aiyana’s death and says they are conducting an investigation.

But, as I said, I also blame Aiyana’s death on the media complex: of the “if-it-bleeds-it-leads” infotainment ethos that seems to pass for news—especially local news—nowadays; the perpetuating of the meme that black people are always and inherently entertaining to watch, especially if there’s an element of criminality and punishment to it and it’s getting “handled”; of the physical erasure of women and girls as watchable; the deaths of women of color, cis and trans, as not worthy of discussion–let alone activism–outside of PoC communities.

Or, perhaps, it would be more correct to say that Aiyana’s death is really our collective fault, if we continue to accept these conditions as part of our pop-culture consumption. If we do, we do not bury her with whatever deities she and her family believe in. We sacrifice her, again and again and again.

Race, Culture, and Identity in a Colorstruck World

About This Blog

Racialicious is a blog about the intersection of race and pop culture. Check out our daily updates on the latest celebrity gaffes, our no-holds-barred critique of questionable media representations, and of course, the inevitable Keanu Reeves John Cho newsflashes.

Latoya Peterson (DC) is the Owner and Editor (not the Founder!) of Racialicious, Arturo García (San Diego) is the Managing Editor, Andrea Plaid (NYC) is the Associate Editor. You can email us at team@racialicious.com.